National Affairs: Take Your Choice

Beaming, bald Secretary of Agriculture Charles F. Brannan rode back to
Washington from the tall corn country last week, basking in pleasant
visions of the future. For two days an all-star cast of Democratic
brass had hobnobbed in Des Moines with 3,000 farmers, labor leaders and
party bosses from 16 Midwestern states, whooping up the Brannan farm
plan, which, to hear them tell it, would give the farmer a high income,
the consumer low food prices, and the taxpayer practically no pain at
all (TIME, April 18). There was almost no chance of its...